Registration of cim agent to management agent and system

ABSTRACT

A Common Information Model (CIM) agent is registered to a management agent in a computing environment by a processor device. The management agent is discovered by the CIM agent in a management domain in response to an insertion of the CIM agent into the management domain. At least one of information of the CIM agent and the discovered management agent is registered by the CIM agent. The management agent is compliant with the CIM agent. The management agent is determined by matching a management object scope, or safety strategy in a predefined strategy of the discovered management agent with a management object, or safety strategy of the CIM agent.

REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATION AND CLAIM TO FOREIGN PRIORITY

The present application is a Continuation of U.S. patent applicationSer. No. 13/732,470, filed Jan. 2, 2013, which is a Continuation of U.S.Pat. No. 8,356,055, filed Jul. 20, 2010, which claims priority toChinese Patent Application No. 200910161458.4, filed Jul. 31, 2009 andentitled “Method and System for Registering CIM Agent to ManagementAgent and the Management System thereof,” all of which are incorporatedherein by reference.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

1. Field of the Invention

The present invention relates in general to information processingtechnology, and more particularly, to a method and system forregistering a CIM agent to a management agent and management system.

2. Description of the Related Art

Web Services for Management (hereinafter referred to as “WS-Man” forshort) is a management model released jointly by a number of InformationTechnology (IT) companies, and is a specification of realizing IT systemmanagement by using a Web service standard. WS-Man providesfunctionality of accessing and exchanging management information on anIT architecture based on the Web service standard to reduce managementcost and complexity. By using Web services to manage the IT system, theIT system supporting WS-Man enables the IT administrator to remotelyaccess the network components on its network from silicon components,handheld equipment, servers and large data centers, for example. Inorder to provide support for the WS-Man specification, many currentoperating systems contain components for providing WS-Man functions.With the continuous development of IT systems, the use of WS-Manfunctions is anticipated to increase.

Alternatively the Common Information Model (CIM) is another commonmanagement model released by the Distributed Management Task Force(DMTF), and is a specification for describing the information of amanagement object. CIM uniformly defines the objects in the computersystem management domain so as to describe the information of objects,such as network equipment, system, application programs, and the like inthe management domain irrespective of a specific implementation suchthat the information can be used for other management tools.

The CIM standard is divided into two parts: the CIM specification andCIM schema. The CIM standard provides a formal definition of the modeland is used for language description, naming, meta schema and themapping technology to other management models. The CIM schema gives thedescription of the actual model. The CIM model is independent of anyspecific database, application, protocol and platform and can describeinformation such as desktop software and hardware configuration, theserial number of CPU package blocks and the flow level on a certainrouter port in specification form. At present, many IT corporations havewidely adopted the CIM standard.

Due to the description capability of the CIM model to managementobjects, CIM models are integrated into many current management systemsfor use. In such management systems, when it is necessary to obtain theinformation of the management objects in the management domain in orderto accomplish the specific system management tasks, the CIM schema isused to obtain the information of the management objects represented bythe CIM model, and the management tasks are carried out based on theobtained information. The combination of the CIM model and themanagement system not only reinforces the function of the managementsystem but also can expand the application scenario of the CIM model.This also applies to the above-mentioned WS-Man model, which can be usedby integrating the CIM model.

FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram of the existing architecture of the WS-Manmodel based management system built up with the CIM model. As depictedin FIG. 1, three parts make up such architecture, including the CIMagent, the WS-Man agent and a management application. The CIM agent isimplemented according to the CIM specification, and is used to provideparts of CIM functions and access to such management objects asequipment, system, and application programs in the IT system. Inaddition, based on the CIM standard, the CIM agent creates the CIMschema for describing the information of these management objects andthus further manages these CIM schemas.

WS-Man agent is implemented according to the WS-Man specification, andis used to provide parts of WS-Man functions and communication with theCIM agent via CIM Extensible Markup Language (CIMXML) protocol so thatit can obtain the information of the management objects represented bythe CIM schema from the CIM agent. In addition, the managementapplication is located at the client of the IT system and is a systemmanagement part specifically implemented on the basis of WS-Man agent.The management application communicates with the WS-Man by Simple ObjectAccess Protocol (SOAP) so that the application can access and exchangemanagement information via the WS-Man agent, thereby realizing thespecific system management tasks. The relation between WS-Man agent andthe management application is similar with that between the server andthe client. The WS-Man agent corresponds to the server for providing theWS-Man functions, while the management application corresponds to themanagement interface that is located at the client and realizes specificsystem management function with the WS-Man function provided by theWS-Man agent.

The above architecture as shown in FIG. 1 realizes a combination of theCIM schema and the WS-Man model. However, in some situations it isnecessary to introduce manual operation. In a first situation, beforethe WS-Man agent needs to use a certain CIM agent to obtain theinformation of the management objects, the user must manually registerthe CIM agent to the WS-Man agent, and then the WS-Man agent can obtainthe CIM schema describing the information of the management objects viathe registered CIM agent. In a second situation, when the WS-Man agentobtains the CIM schema through specific CIM agent, the user must definethe Web Services Description Language (WSDL) schema corresponding to theCIM schema according to the WS-CIM specification and import the definedWSDL schema into the WS-Man agent so that they can be identified by theWS-Man agent that can only identify the WSDL model. The above WS-CIMspecification defines the binding relation between the CIM resourceswith both the WS-Man operation and WSDL definition.

In the existing architecture as shown in the above FIG. 1, as the aboveaspects necessitate the introduction of manual operation, systemefficiency and convenience for the user are restricted. In addition, asin the acquisition of the CIM schema, it is necessary for user to definethe corresponding WSDL schema according to the CIM schema, thus the useris required to sufficiently understand the above WS-CIM specificationdefining the corresponding relationship between CIM information and WSDLdenotation, which may require user to have an extensive knowledge oftechnology.

SUMMARY OF THE DESCRIBED EMBODIMENTS

The above problems not only exist in the case that the WS-Manmodel-based management system built up with the CIM model, but alsoexist in management systems based on other management models such asRepresentational State Transfer (REST) built up with the CIM model. Inview of the foregoing, a need exists for a management agent scheme suchthat the CIM agent can be automatically registered to the managementsystem based on such management models as WS-Man, REST, and the likewithout the introduction of manual operation as previously described.

Accordingly, the illustrated embodiments provide mechanisms forautomated registration of a CIM agent to a management agent and amanagement system thereof, without the necessity of manual operation. Inone such embodiment, by way of example only, a method for registering aCommon Information Model (CIM) agent to a management agent in acomputing environment by a processor device is provided. The managementagent is discovered by the CIM agent in a management domain in responseto an insertion of the CIM agent into the management domain. At leastone of information of the CIM agent and the discovered management agentis registered by the CIM agent. The management agent is compliant withthe CIM agent. The management agent is determined by matching amanagement object scope, or safety strategy defined in a predefinedstrategy of the discovered management agent with a management object, orsafety strategy of the CIM agent.

In addition to the foregoing exemplary embodiment, various otherapparatus, computer program product, and method of manufactureembodiments are provided and supply related advantages.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

In order that the advantages of the invention will be readilyunderstood, a more particular description of the invention brieflydescribed above will be rendered by reference to specific embodimentsthat are illustrated in the appended drawings. Understanding that thesedrawings depict embodiments of the invention and are not therefore to beconsidered to be limiting of its scope, the invention will be describedand explained with additional specificity and detail through the use ofthe accompanying drawings, in which:

FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram of the architecture of the prior WS-Manmodel based management system built up with the CIM model;

FIG. 2 is a schematic diagram of the architecture of the WS-Man modelbased management system built up with the CIM model according to aspectsof the present invention;

FIG. 3A is a general flow chart of a CIM agent method for registering aCIM agent to a management agent according to one embodiment of theinvention;

FIG. 3B is a general flow chart of a management agent method forregistering a CIM agent to a management agent according to oneembodiment of the invention;

FIG. 4 is a detailed flow chart of step 305 in the method shown in FIG.3A;

FIG. 5 is a detailed flow chart of step 310 in the method shown in FIG.3A;

FIG. 6 is a detailed flow chart of step 315 in the method shown in FIG.3B;

FIG. 7 is a detailed flow chart of step 320 in the method shown in FIG.3B;

FIG. 8 is a block diagram of a system for registering a CIM agent to amanagement agent according to one embodiment of the invention; and

FIG. 9 is a block diagram of a management system according to oneembodiment of the invention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 2, following, is a schematic diagram of the architecture of theWS-Man model based management system built up with the CIM modelaccording to one embodiment of the present invention. As shown in FIG.2, the architecture of the invention is similar as that shown in FIG. 1,and consists of three parts, i.e., a CIM agent, WS-Man agent andmanagement application. In contrast to the depiction shown in FIG. 1,the functionality shown in FIG. 2 also includes self-registrationfunctionality from the CIM agent to the WS-Man agent. Theself-registration functionality of the CIM agent includes, in oneembodiment, the self-registration portion of the CIM agent in the CIMagent (part (1)) and the self-registration portion of the CIM agent inthe WS-Man agent (part (2)).

The self-registration portions of the CIM agent may, in one embodiment,discover the local or remote existing WS-Man agent and register the CIMagent to the compliant WS-Man agent in response to the case that the CIMagent is inserted into the IT system of the management domain.Therefore, by comparing with the prior technology, the abovearchitecture of the invention can register the CIM agent to the WS-Managent without the introduction of manual operation. In addition, as thediscovery mechanism is employed to seek and determine the WS-Man agentthat is compliant with the CIM agent, for any CIM agent, all theregistrable WS-Man agents that are compliant with it may be discovered.Therefore, the registration relationship of one-to-many from the CIMagent to the WS-Man agent can be formed by registering the CIM agent toat least one of such compliant WS-Man agents.

Thus, unlike the case that, in the architecture as shown in FIG. 1, theCIM agent A of the management equipment A is only registered to theWS-Man agent A chosen by the user and the CIM agent B of the managementsystem B is only registered to the WS-Man agent B chosen by the useraccording to the selection of the user, in the exemplary architecture ofthe invention as shown in FIG. 2, where it is determined that the eachof WS-Man agents A and B is compliant with the CIM agent A, the CIMagent A may be registered to the WS-Man agents A and B simultaneously;similarly, where it is determined that each of WS-Man agents A and B iscompliant with the CIM agent B, the CIM agent B may be registered to theWS-Man agents A and B simultaneously.

Consequently, even if either of the WS-Man agents A and B fails, the CIMagent A (or B) can be used through another WS-Man agent withoutregistering again as the CIM agent A (or B) is registered to another oneof the WS-Man agents A and B simultaneously. Indeed, like the priortechnology, the CIM agent can be registered to one or part of the WS-Managent.

It may be noted that, in the above basic conception and the descriptionof following preferred embodiment, for simple description, it is onlyillustrated such case that the WS-Man model based management system isbuilt up with the CIM model. However, this does not mean that theinvention is limited thereto, instead, it is understood that, afterreading the architecture of the invention described above and each ofthe preferred embodiments described below, those skilled in the art canreadily apply the invention to other management modes such as the RESTmodel according to the teaching thereof, thus the detailed descriptionto these circumstances are omitted.

FIG. 3A, following, is a general flow chart of a method for registeringa CIM agent to a management agent according to one embodiment of theinvention. In this embodiment, the description is made by taking theregistration of the CIM agent A as an example; however, the CIM agent Adoes not refer to a certain CIM agent, instead, it refers to any CIMagent in a general sense.

As shown in FIG. 3, firstly, in step 305, the CIM agent A discovers atleast one management agent in the IT system as the management domain inresponse to the case that the CIM agent is inserted into the IT system.In this step, if the above management domain is the management domain ofthe management system that is built up based on the WS-Man model, theCIM agent A will discover at least one WS-Man agent in such managementdomain. A detailed description will be made in connection with FIG. 4hereafter for this step 305.

In step 310, the CIM agent A registers its own information into themanagement agent that is compliant with it among the at least onemanagement agent discovered in step 305. It can be understood that, whenseveral management agents are discovered in step 305, there may beseveral management agents that are compliant with the CIM agent A. Adetailed description will be made in connection with FIG. 5 hereafterfor this step 310.

FIG. 3B, following, is a general flow chart of a management agent methodfor registering a CIM agent to a management agent according to oneembodiment of the invention. FIG. 3A and FIG. 3B are the steps ondifferent module agents, but use the same method. According to FIG. 3B,in step 315, the compliant management agent converts the CIM schema ofthe CIM agent A into the schema at the management agent that can beidentified by the compliant management agent. In this step, if it is theWS-Man model, then the schema at the management agent will be WSDLschema. A detailed description will be made in connection with FIG. 6hereafter for this step 315.

Moreover, as shown in FIG. 3B, this method also includes the optionalstep 320. In such optional step 320, when the compliant management agentreceives a management request in relation to the CIM agent from themanagement application at the client, such management request will beprocessed according to the information of CIM agent that is registeredlocally and its corresponding schema at the management agent. In suchstep, if it is the WS-Man model, the management request will be the SOAPrequest. A detailed description will be made in connection with FIG. 7hereafter for this step 320. Further, a detailed description of step 305in the method as shown in the above FIG. 3A will be described inconnection with FIG. 4, in which the CIM agent A discovers at least onemanagement agent.

As shown in FIG. 4, firstly, in step 405, the registered CIM agent Adelivers multicast query in such management domain according to adynamic discovery protocol in the management domain. Specifically, themanagement domain takes the management domain of the management systembuilt up based on the WS-Man model as an example. In such step, sincethis management domain is based on the WS-Man model, the CIM agent Adelivers a multicast query in the IT system as management domain inaccordance with a WS dynamic discovery protocol corresponding to theWS-Man model. This WS dynamic discovery protocol is a protocol used toseek for the Web services in the network; therefore, according to themulticast query delivered in the above IT system by this protocol, theWeb service executed in this IT system will be found. Indeed, as forother management model than the WS-Man model, it may be required toreplace the WS dynamic discovery protocol with another dynamic discoveryprotocol corresponding to this management model to discover thecorresponding components in the management domain.

In step 410, the CIM agent A receives all of the own informationreturned by the management domain. Specifically, by taking the WS-Manmodel as example, since the CIM agent A delivers a multicast queryaccording to the WS dynamic discovery protocol in step 405 and the Webservice component in the IT system as management domain is the onecorresponding to this multicast query, accordingly, in such step 410, atleast one component corresponding to such multicast query in such ITsystem, i.e., the Web service component, will respond to such multicastquery and return its own information to the CIM agent A. In step 415,the CIM agent A determines at least one management agent in accordancewith the returned information.

In one embodiment, the information that is returned by at least onecomponent corresponding to the multicast query in the management domainin step 410 includes at least the information identifying the componenttype. Thus, in this step 415, the CIM agent A will determine whetherrespective component of the returned information in the managementdomain is a management agent according to such identificationinformation. Specifically, if it is the WS-Man model, the informationreturned by respective Web service component includes at least theinformation identifying this Web service component type, such as WS-Mantype; therefore, in such step, the CIM agent A determines at least oneWS-Man type service component from these Web service componentsaccording to this identification information. These WS-Man type servicecomponents are the objects to be discovered, i.e., the WS-Man agent. Adetailed description of step 310 in the method as shown in the aboveFIG. 3A will be described in connection with FIG. 5, in which the CIMagent A registers its own information to the compliant management agent.

As shown in FIG. 5, firstly, in Step 505, the CIM agent A delivers aregistration request to the at least one management agent (WS-Man agentin the case of a WS-Man model) discovered on the step 305. Thisregistration request includes at least the most basic information aboutthis CIM agent A. In one embodiment, as shown in Table 1 below, theregistration request includes such information items as CIM agentlocation, domain name space, management object, and safety strategyetc., about the CIM agent A. The management object further includes thelist of supporting specification and computer system instanceinformation, and the safety strategy includes the authenticationinformation.

TABLE 1 CIM agent Domain List of Computer system Registration locationname supporting instance authentication space specifications informationinformationFor example, “CIM agent location” is the IP address of the CIM agent A,and “Computer system instance information” is the serial number (modelnumber) of the equipment managed by the CIM agent A. It should be notedthat the above information items are basic information for registeringthe CIM agent. Indeed, the registration request delivered by the CIMagent to the management agent is not limited to such basic information,but may correspondingly include many other information items.

In Step 510, each of the above at least one management agent will matchitself with the CIM agent to determine whether it is compliant with theCIM agent A after receiving the registration request delivered from theCIM agent. In one embodiment, each of the at least one management agenthas the predefined strategy for defining the management object scope ofthis management agent. Therefore, such a step functions to check whetherit is compliant with the CIM agent A by matching the management objectscope defined by the own predefined strategy of each of at least onemanagement agent with the management objects of the CIM agent A. Suchmatching step may be executed in the at least one management agent, andcan also be returned to the management object scope defined in its ownpredefined strategy by the management agent for matching by CIM agent.

In another embodiment, each of the at least one management agent has thedefined strategy for defining the safety strategy. Therefore, in suchstep, other than matching by management object scope in the definedstrategy, checks may be further performed as to whether it is compliantwith the CIM agent A by matching the safety strategy defined by the owndefined strategy of each of the at least one management agent with thesafety strategy of the CIM agent A. Likely, this matching step may beexecuted in the at least one management agent, and can also be returnedto the safety strategy defined in its own predefined strategy by themanagement agent for matching by CIM agent.

In one embodiment, the predefined strategy of each of the at least onemanagement agent defines the management object scope or safety strategyof the management agent by means of defining the information itemscorresponding to the registration request of the CIM agent. In such acase, each management agent will match the information items in theregistration request with its own predefined strategy to determinewhether it is compliant with the CIM agent. For example, the predefinedstrategy of a certain management agent, such as the WS-Man agent,defines the management object scope of the management agent by thedefinition of such information item as “Computer system instanceinformation”, i.e., the management agent only accepts the registrationof the CIM agent that is responsible for managing the specificequipment, such as a memory device. Therefore, this management agent maydetermine whether the CIM agent delivering such registration request iscompliant with itself by the consistency between the information item“Computer system instance information” in the received registrationrequest and the information item “Computer system instance information”defined in its own predefined strategy. For example, the predefinedstrategy of a certain management agent may define the safety strategy ofsuch management agent by defining the information item “Registrationauthentication information), i.e., such management agent only acceptsthe registration of the CIM agent with specific registrationauthentication information.

It is noted that, the definition for a certain information item in thepredefined strategy of respective management agent may be a scope, i.e.,this management agent is defined to only accept the registration of theCIM agent within a specific scope. In addition, the predefined strategyof each management agent may also include the definition to multipleinformation items simultaneously. Moreover, in one embodiment, thepredefined strategy of each management agent is dynamically changedaccording to the user's configuration.

In Step 515, in response to the case that the management agent that iscompliant with the CIM agent A is determined, if the matching step isexecuted by the compliant management agent, then the management agentthat is compliant with the CIM agent A will register the information ofthe CIM agent in accordance with the above registration request; if thematching step is executed by the CIM agent, then the CIM agent A willregister it to the compliant management agent.

Specifically, in such step, if the matching step is executed by thecompliant management agent, the management agent determining that theCIM agent A is compliant with itself will capture respective informationitem from the above registration requests delivered by the CIM agent A,and preferably these information items are recorded in its localregistration database. If the matching step is executed by the CIMagent, then the CIM agent A may deliver a registration confirmationagain; and the compliant management agent will capture respectiveinformation item from the registration confirmation delivered by the CIMagent A, and preferably these information items in are recorded itslocal registration database.

The information items of the CIM agent recorded in the database ofrespective management agent may be indexed with the information itemssuch as CIM agent domain name space or the host identifier distributedto the CIM agent etc., or with the port information by which suchmanagement agent uses to communicate with the CIM agent. Moreover, inthe at least one management agent, the management agent that the CIMagent A is not compliant with it is determined and the information ofthe CIM agent A will not be registered. In step 520, after themanagement agent in the at least management agent that is compliant withthe CIM agent A is registered, the CIM agent A will receive the returnedresponse indicating that the above registration request has beenaccepted.

It is noted that, the invention does not have any special limit to theexecution order of Step 515 and Step 520 as shown in FIG. 5. These twosteps may be executed in the order reverse to the above order orexecuted at the same time. A detailed description of step 315 in themethod as shown in FIG. 3B will be described in connection with FIG. 6,in which the CIM schema is converted. As stated above, there may beseveral management agents among the at least one management agentsdiscovered by the CIM agent A that are compliant with the CIM agent A.However, since the schema conversion processes performed by eachcompliant management agent are the same, only one compliant managementagent need be explained as is shown below.

As shown in FIG. 6, in Step 605, the compliant management agent (WS-Managent if it is WS-Man model) obtains all CIM classes from such CIM agentA by setting up a communication connection with the CIM agent A. In step610, the compliant management agent determines the CIM classes from theobtained CIM classes, and then determines the CIM schema to be convertedfrom these CIM classes. In step 615, the compliant management agentsearches the local or the local registration database for respective oneof the CIM schema to be converted to check whether such CIM schema isrepeated with the existing schema, i.e. whether there is stored theschema at the management agent (WSDL schema if it is WS-Man model)converted from the same CIM schema as this CIM schema in the managementagent or in the registration database of the management agentirrespective whether this same CIM schema is from the CIM agent A ornot. The so-called two same CIM schemas indicate that the equipmenttypes described by these two CIM schemas are the same.

In step 620, in response to a determination of no schema at themanagement agent corresponding to the CIM schema to be converted in thecompliant management agent, the compliant management agent converts suchCIM schema into the corresponding schema at the management agentaccording to the mapping specification corresponding to the managementmodel of the management domain and records it into the registrationdatabase.

The above management domain takes the management domain of themanagement system built up based on the WS-Man model as example. If themanagement agent or its registration database does not have the CIMschema of the schema at the management agent obtained from theconversion of the CIM schema the same as it, then the compliantmanagement agent converts this CIM schema into the WSDL schema accordingto the WS-CIM specification corresponding to the WS-Man model. As theconversion from the CIM schema to the WSDL schema is a common knowntechnology for those skilled in the art, the detailed description for itis omitted herein.

In step 625, the management agent associates the schema at themanagement agent corresponding to the converted CIM schema with the CIMagent A, and records this corresponding relationship into the managementagent, and preferably into the registration database of the managementagent. For the CIM schema converted in step 620 among the CIM schemas,the schema at the management agent obtained from the conversion issimply the schema at the management agent corresponding to it; but forthe CIM schema not converted in step 620, the schema at the managementagent that has been stored in the management agent or its registrationdatabase and is obtained from the conversion of the same CIM schema issimply the schema at the management agent corresponding to this CIMschema.

It can be seen from the above steps 615-625, in this embodiment, for theCIM schema of a newly registered CIM agent, only when the registrationdatabase does not have the schema at the management agent correspondingto it, may this CIM schema be converted and recorded. By such means, theminimum workload of schema conversion and registration database spaceoccupied by the schema at the management agent can be ensured. Thiscannot be realized in case of manual registration by the user. Inaddition, via the conversion of the CIM schema, the CIM agent and itsCIM schema are presented as the component with unique label anddescribed by the schema at the management agent in the compliantmanagement agent. The schema at the management agent obtained byconverting from the CIM schema constitutes component interfaces at themanagement agent presented by the management application at the client,and the management application may deploy these interfaces via its ownconfiguration and use these interfaces to access the CIM agent withthese interfaces.

Table 2 below shows, on the basis of Table 1 above, the summary of theregistration list of the CIM agent formed in the local registrationdatabase by the WS-Man agent after CIM agent completes the conversionand record of the CIM schema. This registration list may includemultiple items, each of which corresponds to one registered CIM agent.Obviously, this registration list can make each registered CIM agent andits CIM schema as the service described by WSDL to be presented to themanagement application at the client.

TABLE 2 CIM Domain List of Computer Registration WSDL agent namesupporting system authentication schema location space specifi- instanceinformation list cations informationOn the basis of the above content, detailed description in step 320processing the management request in the method as shown in FIG. 3B willbe described below in connection with FIG. 7. In the followingdescription, one compliant management agent is taken as the example.

As shown in FIG. 7, in step 705, the compliant management agent receivesa management request related to the CIM agent from the managementapplication located at the client. In a WS-Man model implementation,this management request is the SOAP request related to the CIM agent. Instep 710, the compliant management agent will determine whether the CIMagent involved in the management request has been registered in themanagement agent.

Preferably, the compliant management agent will search its localregistration database to determine whether there is registration itemcorresponding to the CIM agent identified in the management request.Further, with the registration list as shown in Table 2 above, thecompliant management agent may search the registration list according tothe address URI of the CIM agent identified in the management request soas to determine whether the registration list has registration itemcorresponding to the address URI.

If it is determined in step 710 that the CIM agent involved in themanagement request has been registered, then in step 715, the compliantmanagement agent will interact with the CIM agent in order to performthe process corresponding to the management request. Specifically, thecompliant management agent delivers the received management request tothe CIM expansion part in the management agent that interacts with theregistered CIM agent and thus processes the management request inrelation to the CIM agent. The CIM expansion part will perform a seriesof processes including the generation of actual CIM request, thedelivery of the CIM request to the CIM agent, the reception of responsefrom the CIM agent, the encapsulation of the CIM response (SOAPencapsulation if it is WS-Man model) as well as the generation of amanagement response (SOAP response if it is WS-Man model) etc.

Subsequently, in step 720, the compliant management agent generates themanagement response indicating whether the management request isprocessed successfully or not according to the result of step 720, andthen returns it to the management application. Preferably, if themanagement request has been processed successfully in step 720, themanagement agent will generate the response indicating that the processis successful; on the other hand, if the management request is notsuccessfully processed or the CIM agent involved in the managementrequest determined in step 710 is not registered, the response offailure will be generated and delivered to the management application aserror management response in order to indicate that the managementrequest has not been processed successful or the CIM agent involved inthe management request cannot be reached.

It is noted that, the procedure of the management request as shown inFIG. 7 is only an example procedure. The procedure in which themanagement agent processes the management request received from themanagement application according to the content in the registrationdatabase may be implemented with any known approach, as will beunderstood by those of ordinary skill in the art. The above is thedetailed description of the method to register the CIM agent to themanagement agent of this embodiment. The mechanisms of the presentinvention may eliminate the burden of manual operation by the user,improving the registration efficiency of the CIM agent and furtherimproving the management efficiency of the management system. Inaddition, in this embodiment, the same multiple CIM schemas don't needschema conversion and record repeatedly so that the minimum workload ofschema conversion and registration database space occupied by the schemaat the management agent can be ensured. Additionally, the mechanisms ofthe present invention provide a system for registering a CIM agent to amanagement agent. Below is a detailed description of an exemplary systemin connection with attached figures.

FIG. 8 is a block diagram of the system for registration of the CIMagent to the management agent in this exemplary embodiment. In suchembodiment, the registration of the CIM agent A is taken as the examplefor the description. As shown in FIG. 8, the system 80 of thisembodiment for registering the CIM agent to the management agentincludes discovering module 81 and the registering module 82, whereinschema converting module (not shown in FIG. 8) of the management agentthat is compliant with the CIM agent converts the CIM schema of the CIMagent into the schema at the management agent that can be identified bythe compliant management agent. The discovering module 81 discovers atleast one management agent in the management domain in response to thecase that the CIM agent A is inserted into the management domain.

As shown in FIG. 8, the discovering module 81 further includes multicastquerying unit 811, query response receiving unit 812 and managementagent determining unit 813. The multicast querying unit 811 deliversmulticast query in the management domain according to a dynamicdiscovery protocol of the management domain. The query responsereceiving unit 812 receives the information returned by the managementdomain. In one embodiment, at least one component in the managementdomain corresponding to the multicast query returns its own informationin response to the multicast query; and the own information returned bythese components includes the information identifying the componenttypes.

The management agent determining unit 813 determines at least onemanagement agent according to the returned information. In anembodiment, the management agent determining unit 813 determines atleast one management agent from these components according to theinformation identifying component types in its own information returnedfrom at least one module corresponding to the multicast query in themanagement domain. Subsequently, the registration module 82 in FIG. 8registers the information of the CIM agent A to the management agentthat is compliant with the CIM agent A in the at least one managementagent discovered by the discovering module 81.

As shown in FIG. 8, the registration module 82 further includesregistration request delivering unit 821, matching unit 822, informationregistering unit 823 and registration request responding unit 824. Theregistration request delivering unit 821 delivers registration requestto at least one management agent discovered by the discovering module 81for the CIM agent. In one embodiment, the registration request includesthe CIM agent location, domain name space, and management object andsafety strategy in relation to the CIM agent A. The matching unit 822matches with the CIM agent A by each of the at least one managementagent discovered by the discovering module 81, so as to furtherdetermine the management agent that is compliant with the CIM agent A.

In one embodiment, the matching unit 822 determines the management agentthat is compliant with the CIM agent A by matching management objectscope defined in predefined strategy of the management agent withmanagement object of the CIM agent, for each of the discovered at leastone management agent. In another embodiment, the matching unit 822determines the management agent that is compliant with the CIM agent bymatching safety strategy defined in the predefined strategy of themanagement agent with safety strategy of the CIM agent A, for each ofthe discovered at least one management agent.

The information registration unit 823 registers respective informationitem in the registration request of the CIM agent A to the managementagent that is compliant with the CIM agent A determined in the at leastone management agent in response to the case that the management agentthat is compliant with the CIM agent A is determined. The registrationrequest responding unit 824 returns a response indicating that theregistration request is accepted to the CIM agent A for the managementagent that is compliant with the CIM agent A.

The CIM agent A further includes CIM class delivering unit (not shown inFIG. 8), for setting up a communication connection between the CIM agentand the compliant management agent; and the CIM agent will deliver allCIM classes to the compliant management agent in response to the requestof the compliant management agent. The schema converting module furtherincludes CIM class capturing unit, CIM schema determining unit,repetition schema checking unit, schema converting unit andcorresponding relationship recording unit. The CIM class capture unitcaptures all CIM classes from such CIM agent A by setting up acommunication connection with the CIM agent A. The CIM schemadetermining unit determines the static CIM class as the CIM schema to beconverted from the CIM classes captured by the CIM class capturing unit.

The repetition schema determining unit checks whether there iscorresponding schema at the management agent converted from the CIMschema the same as the CIM schema in the compliant management agents forthe respective CIM schema to be converted. The schema converting unitconverts the CIM schema to the schema at the management agent that canbe identified by the applicant management agent according to a mappingspecification corresponding to the management model of the managementdomain and records it in the compliant management agent, in response tothe case that there is no schema at the management agent correspondingto the CIM schema to be converted in the compliant management agent.

The corresponding relationship recording unit records a correspondingrelationship between the schema at the management agent corresponding tothe converted CIM schema and the CIM agent A into the compliantmanagement agent. The compliant management agent also includes optionalmanagement request processing module, which processes the managementrequest from the management application from the client and relating tothe CIM agent for the compliant management agent according to theregistered CIM agent information and its corresponding schema atmanagement agent.

Preferably, the management request processing module further includes amanagement request receiving unit, which receives a management requestin relation to the CIM agent from the management application for thecompliant management agent; a registration determining unit, whichdetermines whether the CIM agent involved in the management request hasbeen registered to the compliant management agent; a management requestprocessing unit, which interacts with the CIM agent involved in themanagement request so as to perform the process corresponding to themanagement request and returns the management response to the managementapplication when determining it has registered; and a management requestresponding unit, which returns a management response indicating whetherthe management request is processed successfully to the managementapplication for the compliant management agent. The above is thedetailed description is the system 80 for making the CIM agent registeritself to the management agent in this exemplary embodiment.

Below is the description of the management system including the aboveexemplary system 80 of the illustrated embodiments. FIG. 9 is a blockdiagram of the management system according to one exemplary embodimentof the invention. As shown in FIG. 9, the management system 90 of thisembodiment includes CIM agent 91, one or more management agents 92, andthe system 80 for registering the CIM agent to the management agent asshown in FIG. 8. However, as can be understood by those skilled in theart, the arrangement of the system 80 in the management system 90 asshown in FIG. 9 is only one example. As long as the CIM agent 91 isregistered into one or more management agents 92, the arrangement of thesystem 80 in the management system 90 can be random and be independentfrom the CIM agent 91 and the management agent 92.

It is noted that, the systems 80 and 90 and their integral parts may beconstituted with specific circuits or chips and may be realized by thecomputer (processor) for carrying out the corresponding program.Although the above described the detailed descriptions of the method andsystem for registering the CIM agent to the management agent and themanagement thereof of the invention through some illustrativeembodiments, these embodiments are not exhaustive, and those skilled inthe art may make various changes and modifications within the spirit andthe scope of the invention. Therefore, the invention does not limit tothese embodiments and the scope of the invention is only subject to theattached claims hereinafter.

As will be appreciated by one skilled in the art, aspects of the presentinvention may be embodied as a system, method or computer programproduct. Accordingly, aspects of the present invention may take the formof an entirely hardware embodiment (e.g., microprocessor or processordevice), an entirely software embodiment (including firmware, residentsoftware, micro-code, etc.) or an embodiment combining software andhardware aspects that may all generally be referred to above as a“circuit,” “module” or “system.” Furthermore, aspects of the presentinvention may take the form of a computer program product embodied inone or more computer readable medium(s) having computer readable programcode embodied thereon.

Any combination of one or more computer readable medium(s) may beutilized. The computer readable medium may be a computer readable signalmedium or a computer readable storage medium. A computer readablestorage medium may be, for example, but not limited to, an electronic,magnetic, optical, electromagnetic, infrared, or semiconductor system,apparatus, or device, or any suitable combination of the foregoing. Morespecific examples (a non-exhaustive list) of the computer readablestorage medium would include the following: an electrical connectionhaving one or more wires, a portable computer diskette, a hard disk, arandom access memory (RAM), a read-only memory (ROM), an erasableprogrammable read-only memory (EPROM or Flash memory), an optical fiber,a portable compact disc read-only memory (CD-ROM), an optical storagedevice, a magnetic storage device, or any suitable combination of theforegoing. In the context of this document, a computer readable storagemedium may be any tangible medium that can contain, or store a programfor use by or in connection with an instruction execution system,apparatus, or device.

Program code embodied on a computer readable medium may be transmittedusing any appropriate medium, including but not limited to wireless,wired, optical fiber cable, RF, etc., or any suitable combination of theforegoing. Computer program code for carrying out operations for aspectsof the present invention may be written in any combination of one ormore programming languages, including an object oriented programminglanguage such as Java, C++ or the like and conventional proceduralprogramming languages, such as the “C” programming language or similarprogramming languages. The program code may execute entirely on theuser's computer, partly on the user's computer, as a stand-alonesoftware package, partly on the user's computer and partly on a remotecomputer or entirely on the remote computer or server. In the latterscenario, the remote computer may be connected to the user's computerthrough any type of network, including a local area network (LAN) or awide area network (WAN), or the connection may be made to an externalcomputer (for example, through the Internet using an Internet ServiceProvider).

Aspects of the present invention are described above with reference toflowchart illustrations and/or block diagrams of methods, apparatus(systems) and computer program products according to embodiments of theinvention. It will be understood that each block of the flowchartillustrations and/or block diagrams, and combinations of blocks in theflowchart illustrations and/or block diagrams, can be implemented bycomputer program instructions. These computer program instructions maybe provided to a processor of a general purpose computer, specialpurpose computer, or other programmable data processing apparatus toproduce a machine, such that the instructions, which execute via theprocessor of the computer or other programmable data processingapparatus, create means for implementing the functions/acts specified inthe flowchart and/or block diagram block or blocks.

These computer program instructions may also be stored in a computerreadable medium that can direct a computer, other programmable dataprocessing apparatus, or other devices to function in a particularmanner, such that the instructions stored in the computer readablemedium produce an article of manufacture including instructions whichimplement the function/act specified in the flowchart and/or blockdiagram block or blocks. The computer program instructions may also beloaded onto a computer, other programmable data processing apparatus, orother devices to cause a series of operational steps to be performed onthe computer, other programmable apparatus or other devices to produce acomputer implemented process such that the instructions which execute onthe computer or other programmable apparatus provide processes forimplementing the functions/acts specified in the flowchart and/or blockdiagram block or blocks.

The flowchart and block diagram in the above figures illustrate thearchitecture, functionality, and operation of possible implementationsof systems, methods and computer program products according to variousembodiments of the present invention. In this regard, each block in theflowchart or block diagrams may represent a module, segment, or portionof code, which comprises one or more executable instructions forimplementing the specified logical function(s). It should also be notedthat, in some alternative implementations, the functions noted in theblock might occur out of the order noted in the figures. For example,two blocks shown in succession may, in fact, be executed substantiallyconcurrently, or the blocks may sometimes be executed in the reverseorder, depending upon the functionality involved. It will also be notedthat each block of the block diagrams and/or flowchart illustration, andcombinations of blocks in the block diagrams and/or flowchartillustration, can be implemented by special purpose hardware-basedsystems that perform the specified functions or acts, or combinations ofspecial purpose hardware and computer instructions.

While one or more embodiments of the present invention have beenillustrated in detail, one of ordinary skill in the art will appreciatethat modifications and adaptations to those embodiments may be madewithout departing from the scope of the present invention as set forthin the following claims.

What is claimed is:
 1. A method for registering a Common InformationModel (CIM) agent to a management agent in a computing environment by aprocessor device, comprising: discovering, by the CIM agent, themanagement agent in a management domain in response to an insertion ofthe CIM agent into the management domain; and self-registering, by theCIM agent, at least one of information of the CIM agent and thediscovered management agent, the management agent compliant with the CIMagent; wherein the management agent is determined by matching amanagement object scope, or safety strategy defined in a predefinedstrategy of the discovered management agent with a management object, orsafety strategy of the CIM agent.
 2. The method of claim 1, wherein themanagement agent converts a CIM schema of the CIM agent into a schema atthe management agent identifiable by the management agent according to amapping specification corresponding to a management model of themanagement domain in response to a determination of no schema at themanagement agent corresponding to the CIM schema to be converted in themanagement agent that is compliant with the CIM agent.
 3. The method ofclaim 1, further including, previous to matching the management objectscope, initiating, by the CIM agent, a registration request to thediscovered management agent, wherein the registration request includesat least one of a CIM agent location, a domain name space, a managementobject and a safety strategy in relation to the CIM agent.
 4. The methodof claim 3, wherein registering, by the CIM agent, at least one ofinformation of the CIM agent and the discovered management agent furtherincludes: registering, by the management agent, respective informationitem in the registration request of the CIM agent in response to thediscovery of the CIM agent, and returning, by the discovered managementagent, a response indicating the registration request is accepted by theCIM agent.
 5. The method of claim 1, further including performing, bythe management agent: setting up a communication connection with the CIMagent, capturing at least one CIM class from the CIM agent, determininga CIM schema to be converted from the CIM classes, determining anexistence of a schema at the management agent corresponding to the CIMschema to be converted, and recording a corresponding relationshipbetween the schema at the management agent corresponding to theconverted CIM schema and the CIM agent.
 6. The method of claim 1,wherein discovering, by the CIM agent, the management agent furtherincludes: delivering, by the CIM agent, a multicast query in themanagement domain according to a dynamic discovery protocol of themanagement domain, receiving, by the CIM agent, information returned bythe management domain, and determining, by the CIM agent, the managementagent according to the information returned by the management domain. 7.A system for registering a Common Information Model (CIM) agent to amanagement agent in a computing environment, comprising: a processordevice, in communication with the management agent and operational inthe computing environment, wherein the processor device: discovers, bythe CIM agent, the management agent in a management domain in responseto an insertion of the CIM agent into the management domain; andself-registers, by the CIM agent, at least one of information of the CIMagent and the discovered management agent, the management agentcompliant with the CIM agent; wherein the management agent is determinedby matching a management object scope, or safety strategy defined in apredefined strategy of the discovered management agent with a managementobject, or safety strategy of the CIM agent.
 8. The system of claim 7,wherein the management agent converts a CIM schema of the CIM agent intoa schema at the management agent identifiable by the management agentaccording to a mapping specification corresponding to a management modelof the management domain in response to a determination of no schema atthe management agent corresponding to the CIM schema to be converted inthe management agent that is compliant with the CIM agent.
 9. The systemof claim 7, wherein the processor device, previous to matching themanagement object scope, initiates, by the CIM agent, a registrationrequest to the discovered management agent, wherein the registrationrequest includes at least one of a CIM agent location, a domain namespace, a management object and a safety strategy in relation to the CIMagent.
 10. The system of claim 9, wherein the processor device, pursuantto registering, by the CIM agent, at least one of information of the CIMagent and the discovered management agent: registers, by the managementagent, respective information item in the registration request of theCIM agent in response to the discovery of the CIM agent, and returning,by the discovered management agent, a response indicating theregistration request is accepted by the CIM agent.
 11. The system ofclaim 7, wherein the processor device, by the management agent, performseach of: setting up a communication connection with the CIM agent,capturing at least one CIM class from the CIM agent, determining a CIMschema to be converted from the CIM classes, determining an existence ofa schema at the management agent corresponding to the CIM schema to beconverted, and recording a corresponding relationship between the schemaat the management agent corresponding to the converted CIM schema andthe CIM agent.
 12. The system of claim 7, wherein discovering, by theCIM agent, the management agent further includes: delivering, by the CIMagent, a multicast query in the management domain according to a dynamicdiscovery protocol of the management domain, receiving, by the CIMagent, information returned by the management domain, and determining,by the CIM agent, the management agent according to the informationreturned by the management domain.
 13. The system according to claim 12,wherein the management agent is a Web Services for Management(WS-Management) agent and the dynamic discovery protocol is Web Services(WS) dynamic discovery protocol.
 14. A computer program product forregistering a Common Information Model (CIM) agent to a management agentin a computing environment by a processor device, the computer programproduct comprising a non-transitory computer-readable storage mediumhaving computer-readable program code portions stored therein, thecomputer-readable program code portions comprising: a first executableportion that discover, by the CIM agent, the management agent in amanagement domain in response to an insertion of the CIM agent into themanagement domain; and a second executable portion that self-registers,by the CIM agent, at least one of information of the CIM agent and thediscovered management agent, the management agent compliant with the CIMagent; wherein the management agent is determined by matching amanagement object scope, or safety strategy defined in a predefinedstrategy of the discovered management agent with a management object, orsafety strategy of the CIM agent.
 15. The computer program product ofclaim 14, wherein the management agent converts a CIM schema of the CIMagent into a schema at the management agent identifiable by themanagement agent according to a mapping specification corresponding to amanagement model of the management domain in response to a determinationof no schema at the management agent corresponding to the CIM schema tobe converted in the management agent that is compliant with the CIMagent.
 16. The computer program product of claim 14, further including athird executable portion that, previous to matching the managementobject scope, initiates, by the CIM agent, a registration request to thediscovered management agent, wherein the registration request includesat least one of a CIM agent location, a domain name space, a managementobject and a safety strategy in relation to the CIM agent.
 17. Thecomputer program product of claim 16, further including a fourthexecutable portion that, pursuant to registering, by the CIM agent, atleast one of information of the CIM agent and the discovered managementagent: registers, by the management agent, respective information itemin the registration request of the CIM agent in response to thediscovery of the CIM agent, and returns, by the discovered managementagent, a response indicating the registration request is accepted by theCIM agent.
 18. The computer program product of claim 14, furtherincluding a third executable portion that performs, by the managementagent: setting up a communication connection with the CIM agent,capturing at least one CIM class from the CIM agent, determining a CIMschema to be converted from the CIM classes, determining an existence ofa schema at the management agent corresponding to the CIM schema to beconverted, and recording a corresponding relationship between the schemaat the management agent corresponding to the converted CIM schema andthe CIM agent.
 19. The computer program product of claim 14, furtherincluding a third executable portion that, pursuant to discovering, bythe CIM agent, the management agent: delivers, by the CIM agent, amulticast query in the management domain according to a dynamicdiscovery protocol of the management domain, receives, by the CIM agent,information returned by the management domain, and determines, by theCIM agent, the management agent according to the information returned bythe management domain.